


Waves of Life

by purplebutterflies



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Postpartum Depression, Pregnancy, difficult birth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 20:23:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2283363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplebutterflies/pseuds/purplebutterflies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since she was young, Valka had a whole world in her head, wide and wonderful. She wouldn't settle for anything less than seeing the whole world outside it too. (Valka backstory - speculative)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waves of Life

**Author's Note:**

> This is an almost entirely speculative fic filling in Valka's backstory. I scoured the HTTYD wiki (which is very detailed), but there's not a lot of information about her outside the second movie. So I tried to figure out what her past might have been based on the woman she became. Any future media will almost certainly contradict this fic, so take it for what it is.

Valka was born in a merchant village called Kline. Her mother ran their shop, and her father their ship. Her earliest memories were of wiggling under the counters and behind the wares, hiding in the dark and rough wood rooms that were never seen by customers. She had no siblings and few friends, but she had a million stories in her head and all the time in the world to play them out.

Kline was blessed with a fortuitous location adjacent to some important ocean currents, and cursed with a foundation that was almost entirely made of sand and rock. There was little farming, and even less animal husbandry. In Kline you made your fortune from the sea or not at all. Valka's mother taught her to swim even as she was still mastering the last stages of toddling, and she spent nearly as much time crawling along the edge of the dock as she did climbing the tallest of the shelves in her mother's store.

Her father traveled for months on end, and was rarely home more than a few weeks at a time. There was always more ports to visit and more merchandise to be restocked. Valka tried to remember to go wait for him everyday, just in case, but sometimes she forgot. Sometimes she would be so caught up in a game of pretend that she would forget there was anyone else in the world at all, until her mother came to gather her for dinner. Then she would tell her mother so many stories, on and on, until time slipped away. But even when she wasn't there to greet him at the dock, her father came straight to her with a hug and a kiss, and always some gift from some far away land. It didn't matter what the gift was; only that it came with a story. She lived for her father's stories.

While the ship was moored her father liked to take her on it, show her how to work the rudder and trim the sails and tie the ropes, even though she was too small to copy any of his motions. "Good!" he said all the same, "Good! We'll make a sailor of you one day, won't we?"

"Today!" Valka cried, pulling so hard on the ropes her whole body slid down the deck. He laughed.

The first time she sailed with her father was halfway between her fifth and sixth birthdays. Her mother locked up the shop, and they all three went to visit aunts and uncles and cousins who lived across the water. Valka watched the dock disappear, watched all the land fade away too, until there wasn't anything but the ocean and the sky.

She didn't remember the aunts and uncles and cousins when all was said and done. What she remembered was the sea breeze in her hair, the stars going on forever above and below, the black of the ocean that could only be seen by the broken reflection of the moon across the waves. Out here, the world was as big and wide as the one in her head, and she didn't think she could ever bear to be somewhere small again.

When they returned to Kline, her mother unlocked the shop, and her father stayed for three weeks. When he left, Valka went with him. And she never looked back.

* * *

Valka was small and lithe. She could slip in the spaces most of the rest of the crew couldn't, and weave through the mess when the deck was at its most chaotic. Soon she could climb the rigging as fast as anyone, with a pack on her back besides. The crew called her a little ship rat, and when she made a face at that, a little lizard, which still wasn't good but was at least better. She prefered to think of herself as a bird; her favorite place on the whole ship was the very top of the crow's nest. She'd climb into it, then further; balancing on the tip-top of the mast and holding her arms wide, her face up, until all she could see was the sky. She pretended she could fly. After all, who was there to tell her she couldn't?

Most of the crew weren't natives of Kline, and if she had enjoyed her father's stories, she was enthralled by theirs. So many far off places she could barely imagine, so many strange people and exciting things to see. She'd find them all, in time, but for now she sat at the feet of the men and women under her father's command and added new details learned from them to the world in her head.

They spoke often of dragons, and never without a snarl or a scowl or a downcast eye. There was a shared vocabulary among the sailors when it came to dragons, and it didn't involve a single spoken word. She was greedy for the knowledge. How could she be a Viking and a sailor if she didn't understand what seemed to be so self-evident to everyone else?

Valka knew little about dragons; they were an occasional pest in Kline, but she had never seen them except in the distance late at night. "It's because there ain't sheep nor pigs nor goats in the village," said the tillerman, and the rest nodded gravely.

"Don't they eat fish?" Valka asked.

"Aye," he said, and his face became stormy. She eventually learned that he'd had fishing boats, once.

She didn't know about dragons and goats, or dragons and boats for that matter. But sometimes she'd see a flock of Nadders soaring overhead, or the bright flares of Nightmares deep in the distant mountains, and she'd wonder if it wouldn't be nice to see more. Just a little closer. To understand why everyone felt the way they did. She knew better than to try, of course, but she'd always dreamed of so many impossible things. Why not this too?

One day she looked overboard to see waves breaking just off the bow, and then had seen the fins and tails and spikes peeking up over the water too. A whole pod of Seashockers! She'd seen them before, but never so close. For the first time she couldn't tell if she was more excited or frightened.

"Dad!" she hissed, grabbing at his sleeve. "What should we do? Are they going to attack us?"

He smoothed his hands over her shoulders and said, "Calm down. We're not fishing, so we're not fighting them for dinner. If we let them go on their way, they'll let us go on ours. Don't go looking for trouble, Valka, hm? It finds you easy enough as it is." Then he tweaked her nose even though she was eight years old now, and not a baby anymore. She batted his hands away and resolved not to speak with him the rest of the afternoon.

But she did notice that the Seashockers didn't bother them at all, and that everyone breathed a little easier once they were out of sight.

* * *

The next trip after that one was another family trip, and her mother accompanied them. It was all the same cousins and aunts and uncles as last time, or so her parents claimed. They cooed over how Valka had grown, how strong she had become from life on the sea, and she smiled and nodded and pretended like she remembered them.

The closest cousin to her was Agata, at three years older. All the others were so much older they ignored the younger ones completely, or so much younger they couldn't wander far from their parents. There was quite a lot of difference between nine and twelve, but not so much that it was better to be alone, so the two girls spent the better part of the week glued together.

On the second to last night before Valka and her family would leave, the older cousins made off to explore the forest, and when Valka and Agata tried to follow, led them through thickets of nettles and mud up to their thighs and finally, laughing, left them trying to scramble up a rock face with handholds too far apart for their shorter limbs. Agata huffed, her face red and eyes wet, and finally stalked back the way they had came.

Valka didn't say anything--she was imagining climbing a mountain a thousands times the size of the quarry that had bested them--but Agata suddenly stopped in place and rounded on her. "If I show you something, do you promise not to tell?" she demanded. "You have to promise."

"I promise," said Valka.

"We'll get in a lot of trouble if you tell."

"I said I wouldn't."

Agata led her through the forest, out the other side where the dirt gave way to crumbling stone of a mountainside. Every fifth step or so sent the unsteady rocks beneath their feet shifting sickeningly. Still Agata went on, and Valka followed.

It was full dark by the time they crested the peak of a hill. Agata shoved Valka down in the dirt on her belly, then dropped beside her. The slope in front of them was pockmarked with dents and burrows. Agata's eyes were trained on it. "You can't tell," she said again. Valka didn't dignify her with a response.

It didn't happen right away. They sat in darkness and silence so long that the image of the slope became inverted when Valka squeezed her eyes shut, the pale dirt appearing darker, and the black holes of the burrows becoming lighter in comparison. Then she realized the burrows _were_ brightening from deep inside. Before she could say anything, the light became searing. Suddenly dozens of Fireworms burst out, scurrying to and fro, their bodies heated to glowing as they hunted the night insects. Rivers of living, molten gold poured from the tunnels, the dim embers of the grass caught in their path mixing with the brilliant afterglow. It looked for all the world like the stars themselves had come down to dance for them. Valka sat up and clapped her hands, crying out in wordless joy. Agata didn't make a sound, but she did grin as wide as she was able.

Eventually, sated, the dragons let their fires die and crawled back into their hive. Agata, who had seemed breathless with wonder during the display, was paranoid again. "My parents hate dragons," she said. "We'll be in so much trouble if they find out we went to look at them."

"I won't tell," Valka said. And she wouldn't. If her aunt and uncle were too afraid, too small-minded to seek out such beauty, then so be it. It was enough that she could treasure the memory forever.

* * *

At the sea for weeks on end, Valka never yearned for the company of her peers. But as soon as they made port she would latch onto any other children she could find. Such friendships were as fierce as they were fleeting, made all the more intense by the knowledge that they wouldn't last. There was no time for hesitation or shyness in such things. When they sailed away again, Valka would be content in the company of the crew and their stories, and the children she played so zealously with would soon be forgotten. Names and faces slipped from her, but the visceral sensations of earth pounding beneath her feet, laughter whooping from her lungs, soft mud and rough grasses and a feeling of _belonging_ as surely as if she had played all her life the same fields and forests--these things she remembered, and held dear.

But friends, even temporary ones, became harder to make over the years. She grew tall, almost as tall as her father, though still wiry and thin enough to scamper up the rigging with ease. Eventually laughing children were replaced with leering boys. Sometimes she minded, sometimes she didn't, sometimes she even leered herself. On the days she didn't much feel like company, she explored.

She's learned much about dragons, from books she found at port and from the burnt and scarred wood of the most heavily attacked settlements. Dangerous, she knew, dangerous--but fascinating too. Timberjacks could be found in most any sufficiently dense forest, she learned. Whispering Deaths made burrows in the mountains, and Snafflefangs liked any natural cave, both high and low.

So Valka went into the deep forest, the forsaken mountains and hidden caves, hoping for just a glimpse. She never got too close, minding that she didn't intrude on their territory. Never letting herself become greedy for more than a distant glance. But sometimes, just sometimes, she got close enough.

To see a Timberjack spread the full span of its wings! To watch the glistening, shifting colors as a flock of Deadly Nadders took flight! Could no one else see the beauty in such things? Was no one else amused and intrigued by what strange creatures Zipplebacks were, by the lazy, twisting way Gronkles floated through the air?

Dragons couldn't be mindless brutes. If they were it would be a simple matter to distract or frighten them away from the villages. Even a gnat had enough instinct to flit away from a swatting hand, and humans were the only creatures who could pose any threat to dragons. If they were truly so stupid as to hurl themselves at the one predator who could match them then surely they would have died out long ago. Nor could she believe for a second they were evil. She'd once seen a forlorn Snafflefang change its colors, to be immediately joined by its whole flock, crowding around and matching its color in solidarity. Evil had no need of community, of comfort.

She tried to explain these things to her father. "I suppose it's one thing, seeing them in the wild," he said slowly, "but don't forget any one of them could have your throat before you could blink."

"There's got to be better ways of doings things," she said. "Fighting never seems to do much, from the stories we've heard. Why not try something different?"

"Hush now. You've been blessed that you've never lost anything to those beasts. Don't presume to know better than those who have."

"I want to help people," she insisted.

"I don't imagine they want your help." He sighed heavily. "How about you just hold your tongue in port so's you don't upset the people I do business with, hm?"

"If I behave badly, you can just tell them I'm not really your daughter," she said cheekily. "Say you found me floating on an ice floe, dressed in rags and chewing on an old boot. I bet they'll feel sorry for me then."

He rapped her head, smiling. "Don't tempt me, girl."

* * *

"That's a lovely pendant."

Valka glanced at the young man talking to her, but kept most of her attention on the rope she looped between her palm and elbow. Their ship had arrived at the dock of the little town earlier that very morning, and now she sat on the pier, finishing up the bundling of some new supplies. She was nearly done though, and not opposed to some company. The young man looked friendly enough. He was probably a bit shorter than her, and portly, with scruffy blond hair and a thin, plaited beard. "Thank you," she said. "I got it on the coast of Kerek."

"I see. That dagger too, then?"

"No." She dropped the coil of rope on top of the bundle at her feet and pulled her knife out. "This is from Dagnon. Similar aesthetic, but see the details on the hilt here?"

He chuckled. "I suppose I do, though I'd be lying if I pretended to recognize them. I was thinking that I hadn't seen you here before, but it sounds like you're a traveler."

"Aye, on my father's ship." She jerked her head over her shoulder towards the moored ship. "We're here trading for a few days."

"Well, welcome to Berk." He held out his hand, and she took it. "The name's Gobber."

"Valka," she said with a smile, and hoisted her packages. "Here, I've got to take this back. Excuse me a moment."

As she stepped on the gangplank she heard muffled shouting and scuffling behind her, and by the time she turned around Gobber was nowhere to be seen--though there were some suspicious ripples in the water right near where he had been standing--and he was replaced by someone new. This fellow tall and well muscled, with wild bristles of red hair and a surprisingly well grown beard. And a strong face. And a broad chest. Valka hesitated for half a step, then walked right up to him.

Though he stood solidly out in the open, he still looked slightly abashed as she approached. "Well now," she said, and he fiddled with his belt.

"Terribly sorry." A gruff voice. It evens out on the next breath. "Was he bothering you, miss?"

Gobber? Valka glanced around the dock and shrugged. "No. I thought we were having a nice conversation."

"Oh." Was that disappointment? She felt a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, very," she said breezily. When his eyes darted away she tipped her head to catch them again. "Or do you think me dishonest?"

"No, no!" he cried, now on the verge of panic. This was really more fun than it should be.

"Good," she said with a tip of her head. "That'd be pretty presumptuous of you." And now she let her smile spread wide.

He paused, then drew himself up. "Maybe I am a bit presumptuous."

"Oh?"

"Would you like to go for a walk? With me?" he added quickly. "Please?" Such gentle hope in his eyes for so strong a man.

"I would," she said.

* * *

His name was Stoick. He was one of the best warriors in the village, skilled in all manners of combat. He feared no man or beast, and shrug off all blows as though his skin was made of iron. Even veterans of wars that predated his birth stopped and listened to his commands. Soon, he would be chief.

These things she learned from the people of Berk (well, not his name, he had introduced himself properly). They were interesting things to know, important things, but for some reason they didn't seem the _most_ important.

More important was that Stoick loved dance, and loved song even more. That he would pause to take in the beauty of a sunset. That he not only listened to her stories, but asked questions about them, chasing this detail and that. Intelligent questions, the sort that showed he had at least an interest in the world outside his island. Maybe it was only a chief's interest in keeping an eye on his neighbors, but it was there all the same.

He was exceedingly gentle. Some men, bulging with muscles and hands molded to fit nothing less sturdy than a battle axe, became ungainly in their attempts at finesse. Not so with Stoick. They ran through the forest, in and out of the trees, laughing like children. Although he chased her doggedly, she was quick and spry, and managed to slip away time and time again. Each time his touch became that much more determined, and that much kinder when his step finally matched her own. When at last she stopped to fall back against a tree, rough bark digging into her back and warm hands resting on her hips, it felt like she'd been missing his touch for a lifetime.

It was alright to indulge. It was alright to rush. She'd be gone soon, with only her memories to take with her. Why not get caught up? Why not let herself fall? So she twined her arms around his neck and leaned in.

It was the storm that did her in. Freezing winter sleet that trapped the ship at the dock and forced them to extend their planned three day stop in Berk to nearly two weeks. If she'd only had three days she would have been fine. If it had been a week, she could have convinced herself to let go. But after two weeks, after climbing on that boat with the feel of Stoick's lips burned into hers, and standing at the stern to watch him fade into the distance like she had watched Kline fade on her very first voyage, she felt as though something that had taken deep root was being torn from her. She'd never really understood what home might feel like until she knew she was leaving it.

She traveled back to Berk three more times. On the third, she stayed.

* * *

Her legs weren't used to being so long on solid ground. After a month she could feel a twitching in her muscles, an instinctive tensing to compensate for the erratic shifting they were used to. When she told Stoick he laughed, and then danced with her until her legs were too tired for any motion at all and he had to carry her to bed.

As a gift, he gave her a small, sleek boat. It could easily carry half a dozen or so, but could also be sailed by a single passenger. She took it out almost every day to explore the smaller islands near their home. When she stayed out a night without telling him he kissed her to welcome her home, when she stayed out two he shook his head at her, and when she stayed out three or more he furrowed his brow and said, "If you're not careful the dragons will catch you out there, my dear."

"I'm not afraid of dragons," she said, "and you shouldn't be either."

She saw her first dragon attack in Berk. Her father had been clever about visiting certain ports seasonally, when such attacks were uncommon. Their ship had had the occasional run-in with a rogue Scauldron or flock of irate Raincutters, but nothing like the concentrated devastation she saw in Berk. The morning after, as they stood among the ash, Stoick said, "There, do you see?"

"I do," she said, and took his axe. "What do you think is going to happen if you run at them screaming and waving this? Beasts like that are going to defend themselves."

"We're defending ourselves!" he roared. "What would you have us do, turn over the village to them?"

"They're not attacking the village," she yelled right back. "They're looking for food--can you really not see that? What have they to gain from burning down our houses?"

"Then we fatten the beasts and starve ourselves."

" _No_. But there's got to be a better way. Or are a few sheep worth--" She thrust her hand out, sweeping her arm towards the half ruined homes, the blackened fields and injured villagers. "-- _this_?"

They couldn't come to an accord on the matter of dragons. On a number of things. Stoick wasn't like her parents, who seemed to considered long separations essential to the stability of their marriage. He was discomforted by her frequent trips out to sea, and even more so when she would find a merchant she knew at the dock and beg a place on the next leg of their journey, returning to Berk weeks or even months later. She was frustrated with how very set he was in Berk, and by the idea that she ought to remain at home to wait for him when his duties regularly kept him out until the wee hours of the morning. He wanted her waiting at home; she wanted him waiting at the dock. He was as immovable as a mountain, and she roared like a tempest. Gobber watched them, shook his head, and said, "Well, we are Vikings. Fighting's in our blood. Maybe we ought to put you two out to war so you can get it out of your system."

Stoick growled, and Valka rolled her eyes. Then they all three would laugh and bicker over who should cook dinner. Because at the end of the day, when it mattered, Valka would be waiting at home for Stoick, no matter how late it got and how cross he was at the trouble he had to deal with. When she got into a wandering mood and took to the sea, he'd be standing on the shore when she got back, always with a kiss and a smile that said he'd wait a thousand years, and still hold her as dearly as their first night.

The other villagers didn't take to her as kindly. Too strange; a strange woman who nabbed the chief, with even stranger ideas. She wasn't surprised to find that people were as small minded as she had always assumed, but it was a bit disappointing. Only a bit. She had everything she needed, and she'd never much cared for company anyway. As long she had an ocean to explore and Stoick with her, she would be just fine.

When she found out she was pregnant, Stoick roared more loudly than he ever had in even the fiercest battle and spun her around and around while she laughed and clung to him. Then he stopped and said, very seriously, "I'm sorry."

"Whatever for?" she asked, running her hands up and down his broad chest.

"It looks like you'll be stuck at home with me for a while." He fought to keep his mouth straight, but his eyes sparkled.

She smiled and threw her arms around his neck. "There's nowhere else in the world I'd rather be, you foolish man."

 


End file.
